Chokwe
Ucôkwe (Wuchokwe)
Native toAngola, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zambia
EthnicityChokwe people
Native speakers
(2.5 million cited 1990–2018)[1]
Official status
Official language in
 Angola (national language)
Regulated byInstituto de Línguas Nacionais
Language codes
ISO 639-3cjk
Glottologchok1245
K.11[2]
Chokwe
PersonKacôkwe
PeopleTucôkwe
LanguageUcôkwe (Wuchokwe)

Chokwe (also known as Batshokwe, Ciokwe, Kioko, Kiokwe, Quioca, Quioco, Shioko, Tschiokloe or Tshokwe[3]) is a Bantu language spoken by the Chokwe people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Angola and Zambia. It is recognised as a national language of Angola, where half a million people were estimated to have spoken it in 1991; another half a million speakers lived in the Congo in 1990, and some 20,000 in Zambia in 2010.[1] It is used as a lingua franca in eastern Angola.

Writing system

Angola's Instituto de Línguas Nacionais (National Languages Institute) has established spelling rules for Chokwe with a view to facilitate and promote its use.

Phonology

Vowels

FrontCentral Back
Close i u
Close-mid e o
Open-mid ɛ ɔ
Open a ~ ɑ

Vowels may also be heard as nasalized when preceding nasal consonants.

Consonants

Labial Alveolar Post-
alveolar		 Palatal Velar Glottal
Stop voiceless p t (c) k
voiced b d (ɟ) g
aspirated pʰ tʰ kʰ
prenasal vd. ᵐb ⁿd (ᶮɟ) ᵑɡ
prenasal vl. ᵐp
Affricate voiceless p͡f t͡f t͡ʃ
voiced t͡v d͡ʒ
prenasal ⁿd͡v ⁿd͡ʒ
Fricative voiceless f s ʃ h
voiced v z ʒ
prenasal ⁿz ⁿʒ
Nasal m n ɲ
Approximant lateral l ʎ
plain j w

Affricate sounds /t͡ʃ, d͡ʒ, ⁿd͡ʒ/ may also be pronounced as palatal stops [c, ɟ, ᶮɟ].

Tones

Chokwe has three tones as /v́/, /v̀/, and /v̂/.[4][5]

Examples

English Chokwe
Good Morning

-Response

 Menekenu

-Mwane

See you Ndo shimbu yikehe
Goodbye Salenuho
What is your name? Jina lie yena iya?
My name is ____ Jina liami ___

[6]

References

  1. 1 2 Chokwe at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022) Closed access icon
  2. ↑ Jouni Filip Maho, 2009. New Updated Guthrie List Online
  3. ↑ Nurse, Derek; Philippson, Gérard; Bostoen, Koen; Van de Velde, Mark (2019). The Bantu languages (Second ed.). London. ISBN 9781317628682.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  4. ↑ Ualhanga, Xavier Chipuleno (2017). Antroponímia na Língua Cokwe (Lunda-Norte) [Anthroponymy in the Cokwe Language (Lunda-Norte)] (Master's thesis) (in Portuguese). Universidade NOVA de Lisboa. hdl:10362/21952.
  5. ↑ Martins, João Vicente (1990). Elementos de Gramática de Utchokwe [Utchokwe Grammar Elements] (in Portuguese). Lisboa: Instituto de Investigação Científica Tropical. pp. 25–32.
  6. ↑ Akindipe, Omotola. "Learn Chokwe (Greetings and Introduction)". Learn Chokwe. Archived from the original on 2021-05-09.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Chokwe language.


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.